Diary of a Ranting Mother

BY KCY

I may not spend this Christmas with my kids. And apparently, I’m a bad mom. My kids will spend Christmas in the bay area, and I will be in not-so-sunny Southern California. In Southern California, where it never rains, the roads are slick making impatient drivers even more impatient, turning bad drivers into worse drivers, and dispelling more arrogance on people who think they are good drivers. It’s raining all along the I-5, the main freeway to Northern California, causing big rigs to inadvertently fling water into the windshields of small cars like mine, daring them to spin and skid. But I’m still a bad mom because I’m not there.

Never you mind, that this morning I set off in my car, fully intending to power through like I do with everything. With my “I can do anything” attitude, I once drove through a snowy blizzard in an old Toyota Corolla with a visibility of one foot. I’ve looked danger in the eye and skydived. Today, though, I turned back. With the visibility worsening, the rain falling harder, the cars driving more erratically around me, I turned back. Turning back, though, apparently equates to being an awful mom. An uncaring mom. A selfish mom. Heck, a selfish person.

This makes me angry. It makes me indignant. It hurts. Sadly, it also doesn’t surprise me.

Unfortunately, if I was a man and I was a father, I would be exalted for at least trying to get to my kids for Christmas. I would be celebrated for turning back. I wouldn’t be called selfish but selfless. Selfless because by not driving, I was not putting myself in danger, and, thus, ensuring my kids would have a father around for years to come.

But that’s not how society sees me and that’s a problem. There’s an even bigger problem, though. I see me as society sees me.

When I was in my twenties, I was all about women empowerment, being a career woman. When an ex-boyfriend suggested to me that he would work and I could just work half time and take care of the children, I quickly took offense to that and got rid of him. After all, it was the twenty-first century and how dare, he suggest I stay home and raise the children.

Alas, he wasn’t wrong. Yes, I work full time, but I’ve also become that woman. The woman who has bought into the gender roles society has imposed on us as wives and mothers.

I cook, clean, grocery shop, do laundry, make lunches. I even bake and iron patches onto a girl scouts’ uniform. I essentially run the household. It’s not okay for me to sit around and do nothing. It’s not even okay for me to be sitting down right now writing this rant for all of you to read. I should be washing something, vacuuming, or buying new underwear for someone who has outgrown theirs.

I’m not supposed to relax at home. I’m supposed to keep the household together. I’m not supposed to turn back in the rain. I’m supposed to power through it or feel immense guilt for not powering through it.

Why do we do this to mothers? Why do we make them feel this way?

Mothers and fathers should be treated the same. Women and men should be equal.

But you and I both know, that isn’t true.

And there’s no way to put it but to say that freaking sucks. That freaking sucks.

After I turned back in the rain to come home, I immediately went to FedEx and spent an exorbitant amount of money to mail the gifts overnight so that the kids would have all of their presents on Christmas morning. Christmas presents which I had spent weeks thinking and planning. Christmas presents I had wrapped. But that’s not enough.

I’m going to stop my rant now. I’m not going to give away any more power to you. I’m going to choose to recognize that being a woman and being a mom are hard. We are judged too quickly, too harshly. We do what we can. I do what I can. And sometimes that means turning back.